Time Limiting Welfare: Lessons from the States
Judith M. Gueron, MDRC, February 6, 1998
Time limiting welfare is a dramatic
departure from past policy, raising many questions:
1. What forms do time limits take?
2. What are the key operational challenges?
3. What happens when people hit the time limit
"cliff"?
4.What are the effects on the behavior and well-being of
families and children?
5. Who wins and who loses?
Early information from waiver states provides some
answers.
1. What forms do time limits take?
- "time limit" has more than one meaning:
ending all support, providing work, reducing support,
providing vouchers
- the time limit clock runs at different speeds,
sometimes stopping for people who are working
- states are combining time limits with other policies:
expanded welfare-to-work programs, enriched financial
incentives, more intensive case management
- states are using different approaches to handling
extensions and exemptions
2. What are the key operational
challenges?
- communicating the message: balancing firmness
(creating a sense of urgency) and flexibility
(responding to the diversity in the caseload)
- managing time: 5 years is a long time; some states
encourage people to "bank" their time for
future emergencies, others to invest in education or
training with the goal of getting longer-lasting jobs
- operating large-scale, high-performance
welfare-to-work programs: time limits raise the
stakes on getting people jobs, resulting in an
expansion of work programs
- tracking the time limit: states are challenged to
follow people across welfare cases and locations; if
you cant measure it, it wont be real
3. What happens when people hit the time
limit "cliff"?
- do states strictly enforce the time limit or
"blink"? Early information from the first
waiver location (Escambia, Florida) shows nearly all
people have their full grant canceled
- what share of the caseload is deferred or excused?
Too early to know
4. What are the effects on the behavior
and well-being of families and children?
- welfare dynamics: applications and departures from
the rolls
- employment: getting and keeping jobs, before or after
the time limit
- number cut off welfare without work
- "dependency," income, and poverty
- short- and long-term effects on child-bearing, family
formation, and children?
Research findings are limited because few people have so
far hit the time limits.
Preliminary results from the Escambia, Florida, program
that combined time limits with mandatory welfare-to-work
program services and financial incentives provide some
answers.
In the period before people hit the time limit, the
program:
- increased employment and earnings and raised income
- did not affect welfare costs or rolls (i.e., people
did not "bank" their months of eligibility
for welfare)
5. Who wins and who loses?
In welfare reform, the story is always in the subgroups.
Little is known about how time limits are affecting
long-termers, people with health problems, teen parents, or
people in large central cities, very rural communities, or
areas with high unemployment
Fortunately, the on-going studies in states that launched
evaluations under pre-1996 waivers will provide early answers.
Further findings will come from the major studies of devolution
just getting underway.
6. Policy implications
- simply imposing a time limit is not enough
- communication is key
- translating the message into action is critical
- how best to respond to time limits is not always
clear
- staff need training and support in their new roles
February 1998
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